Parents push Northville board for orchestra

Parents renewed their pitch last week for an academic string instrument program in the Northville Public Schools.

"In a word, music supports music," Rabah Hadjit, the father of two district students, told the Board of Education at its March 14 meeting.

Hadjit, whose children play the violin, argued a string program would enhance, not diminish, other district music programs, such as band and vocal music.

"We know the neighboring districts have been offering a similar program for years," Hadjit said. He asked board members to reconsider officials' 2015 decision to not pursue a string program and to approve a pilot program for the next school year.

Hadjit was among three parents who addressed the board on the topic; all three have at least one child in Northville Strings Students, a non-district-affiliated string ensemble for children ages 7-16 that rehearses in a local church and performs several times a year.

The parents were joined by two advocates, Priscilla Hawkins, a music teacher and cello player, and Liam Haynes, a senior at Walled Lake Western High School who plays the violin and is the orchestra concertmaster there.

Liam said audiences "embrace the live music" of the orchestra and he touted music's academic benefits and players' opportunities for college scholarships.

"Reading music is similar to learning a second language," Liam said.

Some took issue with some district estimates of the cost of starting a string program; Heyde Cassar, for example, said the cost of purchasing instruments, for Northville High School and the district's two middle schools, would be about $34,000, lower than the more than $100,000 the district had estimated.

Lynda Fulgenzi, assistant director of Northville Strings Students and the leader of the push for a string program, later said the $34,000 estimate was for buying cellos and basses — instruments that cannot be easily transported — for one class at each of the three schools, plus a few violins and violas for students whose parents could not afford to rent them. Some students could also rent violins and violas, she said, for about $18 a month.

In front of the board, Fulgenzi argued that student interest in a string program at the high school, about 7 percent in a survey done in late 2014, was comparable to the interest level seen in other districts. Fulgenzi plays violin and daughter Vanessa Wojtalewicz, a high school sophomore, plays the cello in Northville Strings Students.

School board President Cynthia Jankowski later said the board would be willing to take another look at a string program, but that finding money for it is key.

"If we can provide programs or the expansion of programs for the greater good, we're all for it," Jankowski said Monday by phone.

It's not only a question of paying for instruments, an instructor and music, Jankowski said; finding classroom space is also an issue and district buildings have many competing facilities needs. At the high school and at Meads Middle School, she said, space is already tight.

Officials would also have to ensure that a string program was sustainable, she said, and that students starting out in strings in middle school would be able to progress in it at the high school level.

Parents have other program requests that compete for funding, Jankowski said. The future of a string program — and of other programs for which parents advocate — may hinge on a facilities enhancement bond issue that's currently being discussed.

"We would love to entertain all of them, it's just, how are we going to pay for them?" she said.